Japan crisis: BBC sees the funny side

James Naughtie, the Radio 4 Today presenter, poses in his 'love hotel' in
tsunami-hit Sendai .

By Tim Walker

6:30AM GMT 16 Mar 2011

While most news organisations attempt to communicate the full horror of the Japanese disaster, BBC hirelings appear to see it as an opportunity for some light-hearted banter.

James Naughtie was sent to Miyagi Prefecture by the corporation to anchor the Today programme on Radio 4. His visit has led one of his colleagues, Ed Prendeville, to jest on Twitter, the social-networking website: “There were very few hotels with rooms free in Sendai.”

After whining about hotel availability in the city, where coastal areas suffered catastrophic damage, Prendeville disclosed that Naughtie had stayed at a “love hotel”, where guests pay by the hour. “Jim struck it lucky,” Prendeville joked. “He got a luvvvve hotel.”

He then posted a link to an extraordinary photograph of Naughtie posing in the hotel. In the picture, the casually dressed Scotsman, 59, is leaning on a machine.

Prendeville's online message appeared to go down well with his bosses as they officially “re-tweeted” it under the BBC banner. Radio 4’s decision to send Naughtie to Sendai has already raised eyebrows among licence fee payers, with the veteran presenter interviewing Tokyo’s ambassador to Britain, who was sitting in a London studio, and reviewing the British newspapers.